


when we become gods

by drippinggold



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, But Good albeit Open Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Time - Freeform, Trains, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:15:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23115313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drippinggold/pseuds/drippinggold
Summary: “So,” Jaemin’s jaunty tone pulls him back from his daze and brings him back to what is real, “where are you going?”Renjun blinks, momentarily blanks out before he realizes.“Oh, you know,” Renjun starts with a smile.Jaemin smiles back, knowingly.“Just here and there.”
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Na Jaemin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	when we become gods

**Author's Note:**

> thought about one of my favorite scenes in spirited away (which is the train scene of course) and my fave philosophical work and poof! this happened haha

It’s half past 9, the clock on the wall of the train station reads.

Renjun eyes the hands of the clock, lazily examining the lackadaisical way they move. Always to the right and never the left, in time with the telltale ticking sounds of gears turning. Breathing, living.

He’s too fixated, he realizes belatedly when his head starts to spin after a few ticks. The machine is hypnotizing, in a way, like a sweet taboo on the verge of an inconsolable memory. So he looks away and focuses on the sound instead, counting the ticks of the clock in his head. The sound is deafening to his ears, a beating drum echoing in his chest and carrying all the way to the band around his pulse.

He brings his other hand to his wristwatch and strokes the band, absentmindedly tracing the way it hugs his wrist. When his fingers meet the cold metal case of his watch, he comes to and rapidly pulls his other hand away to flex his wrist. He checks his time and clicks his tongue when the time on it doesn’t match the time on the wall clock. But of course. It’s as expected. He sighs and lets his arm rest on his thigh before looking outside the station.

The sky bleeds red, the clouds shifting like black soot around an actively burning fire. The sun is setting, despite what the time on the wall clock says. Yet another incomprehensible phenomenon brought about by the Retribution that has sewn itself into the fabric of their everyday lives. And now hours, minutes, seconds, and even milliseconds don’t mean a thing now that time is virtually inconclusive, severed from its hold on anything earthly.

Renjun wonders what the next Passage will bring. Will the moon rise after the sunset, yet another day passing, or will snow fall and the waters freeze, a whole new season arriving? One can only hope, maybe pray, with lifted hands and mournful invocations, that the next Passage will be kind enough to let them see another day.

That is, if gods are still listening.

There are a few people by the benches next to the empty vending machinesㅡ teenagers, like everyone currently is. He contemplates approaching them to ask for the time on their watches. Maybe he could ask whether they were going to board the same train. But he quickly dismisses the thought. Such are foolish questions. It’s pointless, he knows. It’s a desperate grasp, a yell and a resolve, a leap and a stretch, toward normalcy.

So Renjun just studies them laughing, their wristwatches glinting as they raise their hands to push each other in glee, their figures glowing a hazy maroon, an echo of the furious sunset outside.

He fiddles with his own wristwatch again and jumps when the bells of the clock ring, the hands finally hovering above the fading ‘ _12_ ’ digit. Almost immediately, a train whistle follows the howl of the bells. The scathing whistle is accompanied by the gusty rush of train wheels, mechanical whining and groaning filling the decrepit station.

Renjun stands up by instinct, as if he waits for the mechanical beast all the time. And maybe he does. Maybe he waits for it all the time because there’s nothing more to do than that. To wait.

He brushes off his clothes and takes note of the happy teenagers doing the same. Their noise dies down, from shouting to murmuring, as they approach the steam-powered passenger train. Smoke curdles around the train, the feverish metal not quite matching the cool weather of this station. Renjun swats them away from his face, coughing when some escape his swats to hit him square in the face.

“Welcome, welcome!” The train conductor greets cheerily while opening the train doors. The teenagers pass Renjun to board the train first and Renjun lets them, feeling wind rustle his hair and clothes as the whirlwind of the group’s motions pass him by. The teens raise their hands to high-five the conductor, wristwatches no longer gleaming and now deadweight on their wrists under the strain of the darkness that envelopes the train car. The faceless conductor responds animatedly, his palms meeting theirs in hollow slaps, his wrists void of any metal or band.

When all the teenagers have boarded, Renjun forces his legs to work to lead him to the doors. If the conductor was surprised that Renjun wasn’t high-fiving him, he didn’t show it. Renjun snorts. In fact, there was no way of knowing the conductor’s expressions. Renjun doesn’t wear his emotions on his sleeves that he might as well be a conductor, whose face is not a face but a wispy black void beneath a shining gold cap. Only his body language betrays him and Renjun has to force a smile to acknowledge the conductor’s flashy motions of ushering him inside the train car.

Like always, he looks around the interior, sees the same oak wood furnishings, dull gold metal bars, and dim yellow lights. He scans the long benches on either side of the train car.

“All aboard!” The conductor finally shouts, prompting Renjun to sit on the bench opposite to the side that opens up to the station.

There’s a flurry of metalwork and a cacophony of grinding and hissing from the engines powering the rail. The train surges forward and Renjun’s arm shoots out to grab onto the metal bar beside him.

It doesn’t take long for the scenery outside the window to change. Gone are the greying cracked walls and fallen sundered logs under decaying metal benches. Renjun breathes easier as the sight shifts and transitions into lush foliage with sunlight peeking through sweeping trees.

Renjun looks down at his wristwatch just in time to see the hands turn rapidly to land on _3:27_. Three and yet the sun’s rising.

He leans and rests his head on the metal bar beside him. He’s sitting on the edge of the wooden bench, just next to the door of the train, so he can feel the gust of wind as the train rushes by the tall trees.

Bored, he’s so goddamn bored. Every single day is a sickly sweet dollop of visual simulation, his mind only slightly vitalized everytime he has to focus to wait for the trains to arrive. There’s nothing left to do except to go with the motions. Literally. He doesn’t even know anyone, wouldn’t know how to contact those he had known before the Retribution.

He envies the teenagers he saw before riding the train, envies the way they so easily formed a connection despite the current circumstances. It’s a bravery he isn’t afraid to deny he doesn’t possess. Like time, bonds are fickle in this day and age.

Bonds. He mulls it over, unconsciously biting his lip. Oh, how he longs for some kind of connection. He longs to lovingly slide his hand down the spine of his favorite book, longs to sip on a steaming cup of his favorite tea, longs to drown in the soft bed sheets and plump pillows of his bed at homeㅡlongs to hold something remotely _divine_. He tries to stamp his feelings down because he knows nothing will come out of. No matter how hard he tries, it’s just not _physically_ possible. The least he can do is to keep his wishes close to his heart.

Renjun was so swept up in his thoughts that he didn’t notice that the train had stopped.

They’re currently at a new station. It’s an open one, with no walls and just a decaying wooden canopy above fraying metal benches where a few teens are sitting. Renjun sighs and sinks deeper into his seat, not really wanting to get off. It doesn’t take too long before the train starts up and metal whining fills his ears again.

Then almost immediately, strong winds rustle his hair. He perks up and looks behind him. They’re at open sea.

He looks down at his wristwatch briefly. 6:08 with the sun bright up in the sky, the heat almost scorching. He runs his hand through his hair, keeping stray black locks away from his face so he can marvel at the sight in front of him.

The expanse of the cerulean water is glittering, almost blinding, a reflection of the high sun in the sky. Renjun spots a few fishes, their colors standing out contrastingly against the dull grey and brown of the sand. There are a few seaweed plots here and there and tiny islands with trees and bushes spatter the sea. The water is still and flat, an unbending line below the sky. Ripples only appear near the train tracks, a product of the wheels breaking through the steel calm of the sea.

Renjun rests his arm on the window as he stares, mesmerized. This is his favorite part of the everyday. The sea is his favorite stop because unlike all the others, it’s hard to associate it with decay and devastation. Nothing can ruin the primordial sea and nothing can ever take away its quintessential vitality. It’s always so alive and maybe, just maybe, Renjun feels a kind of nostalgic yearning. A wistful knock on his heart for a spark amidst this stationary darkness.

Renjun takes in a deep breath of the salty sea breeze, still looking around. He spots a fragment of cement jutting out in the middle of the sea and squints to get a better look.

It’s a station. A flat cement foundation with a cloth awning and antique chairs lined up below it. There are a few plants surrounding the chairs, vibrant and plentiful, and Renjun is captured by the beauty and simplicity.

The train whistle rings as they get closer and halts to a stop right in front of the station. Renjun turns around to sit properly right before the door to his train car opens.

The sun outside is blazing and the heat is intimidating. Renjun feels the scalding burn of the heat on his skin and has to put his hands up to shield his eyes from the imposing brightness. He doesn’t want the extra effort to strain his eyes against the raging sunlight so he keeps his hands over his eyes until the footsteps stop and the train door closes. He finally brings his hand down.

It hasn’t been that long since the sun was still high up in the sky but already, the sun was setting. This time, the sky is a pastel mix of lavender, pink, and yellow. It casts a soft glow on anything the light touches. Renjun observes the colors shift as the light enters the interior of the train and his eyes land on the person sitting on the other side of the car.

Sitting a few seats away from the door is a boy who looks close to him in age. He has brown hair that’s tousled, probably from the strong winds outside. His band is a shadow on his wrist, the boy’s position not allowing Renjun a clear sight of his wrist.

Seeing enough, Renjun turns his eyes away to look at the sea once again. The expanse is now a mirror of the pastel blend of the sky.

Renjun hears someone clear his throat and he immediately locks eyes with the boy on the other side. The other is now smiling, showing off pearly whites.

“Hey," the brown-haired boy says with a wave of his hand.

Renjun furrows his eyebrows and looks around, the idea of someone actually willing to talk to him setting him on edge. He hasn’t spoken to anyone in a long while and with the perception of time now so skewed, he can’t even exactly pinpoint just how long it’s been since he interacted with something _human._

Noting his confusion, the other boy adds, “Yeah, I’m talking to you.”

“Oh,” Renjun’s eyes blow wide. The boy just grins and raises an eyebrow.

“Hello,” Renjun nods.

“What’s your name?” The other asks.

“My name’s Renjun.”

“Renjun," The boy whispers with a sort of breathlessness that makes Renjun feel funny.

“What’s… what’s yours?” Renjun trips but succeeds.

“I’m Jaemin. Nice to meet you, Renjun," Jaemin says before sliding himself to the side so he’s finally parallel to Renjun. In the light of the sunset, Jaemin’s brown hair gleams like honey, locks of his hair moving with the rush of the winds carried by the trains. He lifts his hands up to pat them down and a slash of light from the reflection of his wristwatch briefly hits Renjun’s eyes. Renjun blinks it out of his eyes just in time to spot the watch on his band, which is strangely located on the pulse of his wrist as opposed to the back of itㅡ as opposed to what is normal. So that’s the reason why the band had looked dull on his wrist.

“Nice to meet you, too," Renjun responds appropriately, mind still whirring as to why the boy in front of him would position his wristwatch that way. But that’s for Jaemin to keep, he supposes.

Jaemin flashes him a bright smile.

This conversation feels so foreign to Renjun that it’s almost as if he’s not inside the moving train at all. He feels detached, feels the moment with an overall numbness.

And yet, somehow, it feels raw at the edges, a profound melancholy. A miniscule trace of intimacy pokes its head at the seams of Renjun’s heart. Is this what it feels like to be...human again? Renjun wonders why he never had the courage to talk to somebody ever again, why he never thought to connect with people againㅡ why he never took the risk of floating in between remembering and forgetting.

“So,” Jaemin’s jaunty tone pulls him back from his daze and brings him back to what is real, “where are you going?”

Renjun blinks, momentarily blanks out before he realizes.

“Oh, you know,” Renjun starts with a smile.

Jaemin smiles back, knowingly.

“Just here and there,” he says while shrugging.

A beat passes.

A ‘pfft’ escapes the brown-haired boy and like the first drop from a rain shower, a small chuckle trickles out of him before transforming into a full blown laugh. It’s contagious and inviting and not too long after, Renjun does the same. Some would find them crazy if they knew what they were laughing about, write them off as just another set of teenagers swept up in the insanity of the Retribution, their minds finally unhinged by the madness of it all.

And maybe, they would be right.

A loud train whistle breaks through the intimate moment, a jagged line like a lightning strike breaking the serenity of the blue. The laughter starts to simmer down to giggles, the fragments of the inside joke slowly loosening its grip.

Renjun pokes his head out the window just as Jaemin does the same. They’re still at open sea. The train seems to be slowing down for an island that’s slowly coming into focus. Once the isle comes into view, Renjun sees teenagers waiting under the covers of large palm trees. He whips his wrist to check the time. _1:34_ with the sun up in the center of the sky, the sunset a while ago now long forgotten in hazy memory.

As the train slows to a stop, Renjun folds his body back inside the car and settles down.

“Say,” Jaemin starts with a shadow of a smirk playingㅡdancing, _inviting_ ㅡ on his lips. Renjun quirks his eyebrow in question.

“Do you want to dance?”

Renjun isn’t one for spontaneity. One would even argue he isn’t one for anything at all.

Well, except for one thing, he supposes.

Huang Renjun works under a rigid system, a system he oh-so-carefully manages and maintains. He makes sure he lives the everyday in the safest way possible, the security of which he ensures with a _routine._ A single gear out of order, a single line out of the loopㅡ and he fixes it back to what he knows should be the norm. It has done him good ever since the Retribution.

But somehow, this time is different. The train is less squeaky (maybe someone had finally oiled the wheels), the sun is shining brighter (perhaps it’s already the start of summer), and the wind is blowing a different tune (maybe he’s just starting to hear things). He doesn’t know really know what’s going on and in a different time, he might be too bothered not knowing.

But, _again_ , this time is different. There’s something about the look in Jaemin’s eyes, something about the ambience of the train, and something about the weird feeling of butterflies in Renjun’s stomach.

Something about _right now_ seems like a good time to not know. Seems like a good time to not be in control.

Seems like a good time to _dance._

And so in a breathless tone, much like the tone Jaemin had used to say his name, he says, “Yes.”

And oh, the sun has nothing on the boy before him.

Jaemin smiles as if the sun had ceased to exist and proffered him his hand. Renjun takes it, heart hammering against his chest. Jaemin encloses it with his other and raises him up to his feet.

Renjun’s sneakers squeak just as his heart skips a beat and then Jaemin is taking him forward, leading him to the train door.

“What are youㅡ”

“Don’t worry,” Jaemin says assuringly. “Trust me.”

Strangely, he does. He trusts Jaemin. He trusts his rough hands, trusts his chapped pink lips, and trusts his wide smile that perpetually blinds. And that’s why he just blinks in bemusement when the boy flings the train door open. A gust of wind enters the car, jiggling the handles hanging on the metal bars above them. Renjun feels the fresh breeze on his face and for once in a long while, he is able to breathe.

Before Renjun can ask, before Renjun can interject with some sort of comment, Jaemin turns back to him with wide and wonderful eyes. His gaze is sizzling, sparkling like a diamond out in the natural light. Radiating like the long lost heavens themselves have finally opened up.

He squeezes Renjun’s hand, prompting him to look down at their enjoined hands. And for the first time, he properly registers the wristwatch around Jaemin’s hand. The watch is still located at the base of his palm. Renjun had found that weird. But clearly, Jaemin is a treasure trove of surprises because Renjun can barely register what he’s seeing now.

His watch is broken. There’s a permanent fissure in the middle of the circle. The glass is gone in the middle, a remembrance of what must’ve been the mark of an irate blow.

This information is supposed to shake Renjun, it’s supposed to bring him back to the safe hold that is the reality brought about by the Retributionㅡ a reality of a world so detached from time and space. And perception and memory. And the past and the future and everything in between.

It’s supposed to reel him in from this saccharine fever dream and back into a world where nothing makes any damn sense.

But when he looks up, back to Jaemin’s face that’s so full of the spirit and the vigor that Renjun is drawn to, his head empties. And when Jaemin lets his hands go to jump out into the sea with an ecstatic “Woohoo!”, Renjun doesn’t flinch and head back to his seat.

“Come on, Renjun!” Jaemin says, standing up. The water isn’t that deep and only reaches a few inches below his knees. “Stop holding back.”

Has he been holding back?

His breath hitches and he fixes his gaze on Jaemin. Jaemin catches it warmly and smiles.

“Live a little, Renjun. Let it all go!”

And Renjun does just that. He lives and lets it all go. And right before the train could start again, he jumps off the humdrum beast and plunges into the water.

Jaemin’s laugh rings like soft chimes and Renjun joins in. They clasp hands and dance to an imaginary tune, the water around their knees sloshing around in abandon. The fishes, noticing the disruption of their habitat, swim away hurriedly in fear.

The sun was beating treacherously on their backs but they didn’t care.

* * *

It’s _7:13_ and they're sitting under the cover of a short palm tree, watching the sun rise and watching as it glows a blazing orange, dousing the earth with a warm feverish filter.

They had danced until their bones ached and had laughed until their throats hurt. A few trains had passed them but it’s as if they were invisible to them.

They're now sporting matching sunburns but they don't really care. 

“Jaemin,” Renjun turns to the boy beside him. Jaemin is lying down with his arms raised and crossed to pillow his head.

“Hmm?” Jaemin hums in question.

“Why do you still wear your watch even though it’s broken?”

Maybe Jaemin was prepared for this question. Or maybe he wasn’t. Renjun doesn’t know how much thought Jaemin had put into his answer but he knows it couldn’t be less of how Renjun was prepared to hear it.

“Broken?” The corner of Jaemin’s lip quirks up. “Is it?”

Jaemin turns his wrist over and _finally,_ Renjun gets the full, unabashed view of his wristwatch. The crack in the middle stands starkingly naked against the calm of the surrounding glass. It’s like a chipped diamond at the base of his palm.

Jaemin hums again, his eyes glued to the device on his wrist.

“Doesn’t look broken to me.”

When Renjun doesn’t say anything, Jaemin lifts his head to look at Renjun and shoots him a grin, his head tilted to the side. It’s playful, dauntless, and… everlasting.

“You can’t call something broken when it never worked in the first place, Renjunnie.”

Renjun’s heart beats frantically against his rib cage. His breath hitches and his eyes widen.

The sunset seems more glaring now, more ire-laden and wicked. The warmth of the day seeps into his skin more cloyingly, the wind tousling his hair more fiendishly. He’s feeling the earth like it’s a grain of sand on his palm. He feels like he can shift his hold on it, tilt it to the side, hold it upside down and the earth would follow with no qualms and no resistance.

He feels like it’s slowly becoming his own world.

And he’s becoming his own god.

Jaemin is still looking at him, his eyes burning with something he can’t contain and his hair disheveled to the point of no return. His lips are pouty and his cheeks are blooming pink. The sight is nothing short of divine, Renjun thinks.

“Hey, do you believe in miracles?” Renjun grins at Jaemin.

And it’s still _so_ divine when Jaemin grins back at him with an eyebrow slightly raised as if he knows what will happen.

As if he knew all along.

Then Renjun figures it out: maybe Jaemin was his own god too, with his own world already in his palms.

And before the Passage could change again, and before the sun could rise again just after it had set, Renjun raises his wrist, the watch glaring threateningly against the light as if in warning, and slams it down on the rock he was leaning against.

_Crack!_

**Author's Note:**

> thamks for reading! <3
> 
> come be friends w/ me on twt? If u want? :D [@renminisces](https://twitter.com/renminisces)


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